Chapter 28 – West
WEST
“ I t’ll be okay Westy boy,” Agnes tells me over the breath of pot smoke she’s holding in.
“That dick hole she’s marrying will likely take a mistress and she’ll take those opportunities to come back and rendezvous with you.
” She blows out the billow of smoke as she pats my head.
“It’s kind of sexy when you think about it.
You’ll be her dangerous, bad boy lover from the wrong side of the tracks who makes her feel like a goddess. ”
“But I don’t want to just be her side piece,” I gripe from my splayed out position on Agnes’s couch, cradling my sixth beer to my chest. “I want to be the guy she sees every day and that she marries in that pretty wedding gown.” Did I mention I’m cuddling a bottle of Jack in my other arm?
That’s probably why I sound like a pathetic little asshole right now.
I see Agnes nod. “As much as I love that dear old Inn, I think I’ve grown to love her more.
“What’s not to love?” I bring my beer to my lips.
Ugh! Never mind, that was the whiskey. “She’s so kind and smart,” I cough out after my unintentional shot.
“The thing is, she loves that old Inn too. And she knows what it means to the town whether it’s open or not.
Even if this whole town tried to stop her from leaving with that bag of dicks and got her to stay, I don’t think it would be the same.
She’d always feel remorse that she’s the reason for it not being here. ”
“I thought it was the crazy dress fetish that hooked me, but it was so much more than that,” I ramble on, slurring my words.
“Dress fetish?” Agnes pipes up. “Do tell…”
“It’s stupid,” I mumble.
As I feel a sleepy haze start to pass over me, I can hear Agnes in the background doing …
what the fuck is she doing? I hear her puttering around, opening and shutting doors while humming to herself, but what really gets my hackles up almost enough to be jarred out of my doze off is the metal clanging.
“Agnes?” I call out, still unable to peel my eyelids open. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it,” she calls back along with the sound of more metal clanging and something heavy being dragged across the floor.
Before I can protest, I hear her front door slam closed, and my brain shuts off.
I blink awake, feeling stiff as a petrified board and as if someone removed my brain and replaced it with cotton balls.
Ugh. Drunk on Agnes’s couch is not a sleeping method I’d recommend.
One thing worth noting as I push myself up into a sitting position, however, is how eerily quiet the place is. There’s nothing quiet about Agnes, so this is concerning.
“Agnes?” I call out, wincing at the gong in my head that goes off in protest to my own voice.
I shuffle around the main floor of her abode, trying to bring my eyes into focus.
I need a cup of straight up black death coffee if I’m going to see through this hangover.
After I make my way into the kitchen I find a Post-it note stuck to the coffee maker.
Peeling it off, I have to blink a few times to be able to read the handwriting scrawled across it.
Hey Sexy ManMuffin,
Meet me at the Inn
-A
I bring my car roaring up to the Inn and I can already see Agnes has chained herself to the porch. I throw the car in park and cut the engine in quick succession before pushing my door open and climbing out.
“Agnes!” I bark. “What in the everloving hell are you doing?!” I shout.
“This is how we handled things back in my day!” She hoots, looking perfectly content with her arms pinned to her sides by the thick chain that’s wrapped around her. Is that what I heard her messing with last night?
“Your Jacob fucking Marley impression really screwed with my half-drunk, half-asleep brain last night, you madwoman.” I point at her.
“But that’s beside the point.” I take out my phone and have a rushed conversation with a half-awake Hattie.
Not knowing what else to do, I pace for the next ten minutes, waiting for her to arrive and hopefully talk some sense into her grandmother - if that’s possible.
Ned is sitting nearby in a lawn chair, sipping from a travel coffee mug and thumbing through a magazine that says Pickleball Monthly on the cover. “Did you do this?” I demand.
He doesn’t even look up. “She wanted me to.”
“And you just listened to her?” My voice goes up a few octaves.
“With Agnes, it’s easier to just go along with it,” he drones out, completely unruffled .
“Gramma!” Hattie scurries up the walkway, her russet hair piled on her head and a rumpled Blasters t-shirt over some black leggings. “What’s going on?” She looks between us. “Gramma, why are you doing this, and how do I get you out?” Hattie fawns over Agnes, sounding forlorn.
“Forget it, I swallowed the key,” she informs her, and I feel the breath leave my lungs.
“Are you crazy!?” Hattie shrieks at her grandmother.
“Duh.”
“Call Hunt, he’s got to have something to cut her free,” I instruct Hattie and she nods.
“Or maybe I’m a mastermind,” Agnes rambles on. “They can’t destroy an old building with a little old lady attatched to it. That would be murder.”
“Gramma, you’re not the first to think of this kind of thing,” Hattie says with her phone to her ear.
“They have legal processes in place for this kind of thing. Let’s just hope no one calls the cops.
Hunt?” She turns away, as he must’ve picked up.
“We have a situation at the inn. It’s gramma, can you bring your tools? ”
“Agnes,” I turn back to her, lowering my voice in an effort to stay calm.
“The wrecking crew doesn’t even come until tomorrow,” I try to ignore the sharp pain that shoots through my heart at the reminder that it coincides with Kira’s wedding.
“If we can’t get you out of this, you’re going to be here for at least an entire day, and if you really swallowed that key, you could be in danger. ”
“I wasn’t giving Kira’s sperm donor a chance to pull a fast one on us,” she replies, still cool as a cucumber.
“I know his type. He’d probably send in the bulldozer early.
He’s probably banking on his daughter bailing in the next twenty-four hours.
This way, if she does, I’ve bought us some time,” she says smugly before adding, “that is, if Officer SweetAss doesn’t come along and break up the party. ”
Shit… she has a point. Mr. Lockwood probably does have his bases covered in case Kira backs out. He knows she doesn’t want to get married to that pencil dick. And he’s probably ready to give the order the minute she loses her resolve.
But not my girl , I think. There’s no way she’ll break under the pressure.
“Besides, I’ve doubled up on the Depends,” Agnes adds, snapping me harshly out of my thoughts.
I drag a hand down my face. Coffee and shock therapy are sounding appealing right now. Maybe even a lobotomy, if it would make me forget about everything that’s happening right now.
“Hunt’s on the way,” Hattie sighs, walking up to me, just as I hear the familiar rumble of a Harley coming around the corner. I know my engines, and I know them enough to know who the rider is before they even pull up.
Kaleb rolls up the small pathway before cutting the engine and dismounting. “People are talking at Donna’s” he reports. “Had to see it for myself.”
“Tell them to mind their business,” Agnes snaps. “I don’t need people talking. I’m trying to hold off the authorites until the last possible second. You head on home and give it to your pretty wife.”
Kaleb shakes his head at her, giving her a fond smile. “I mean it!” She sparks up. “You all are making a spectacle. Unless someone wants to go on a donut run, get out of here, and let an old lady protest in peace!”
I look around, as everyone gets quiet, but oddly, no one moves to leave. In fact, I see the corner of Kaleb’s mouth pull up in a smirk.
“Or we could just forget this whole thing,” Kaleb muses and I can tell he’s trying to do some magic on Agnes.
His wife tends to rub off on him like that.
“We could untie Agnes… go about life as usual, while that old building just sits there and continues to rot because no one wants to deal with it.”
An eerie silence falls over everyone before he continues. “And West, you’ll be perfectly fine. You’ll just go back to running my grandpa’s auto shop like no one else can and you’ll find someone else. Awkward misfits that shake up a man and his town blow through here all the time.”
Okay, he was working magic on me, it turns out. Not in that way, of course.
I don’t want someone else. I want a raven-haired misfit with a bubbly personality, trying to find her way in a little town while charming everyone in it.
The next car to pull up is a small blue Toyota which I know belongs to Dottie, the clerk down at the town hall. I’ve gotten to know everyone by their vehicles.
“Great,” I shake my head and let my arms flop against my sides.
“It’s a municipal affair now,” I gripe as Dottie emerges from her car and ambles up the sidewalk, clutching a tissue between her hands.
She’s sniffling. “I heard you all were here,” she says, almost bitterly.
“Why are you all gathered here at a time like this?”
“What’s with the waterworks, Dot?” Agnes calls out.
“It’s Mayor Wineberger…” she sniffs. “He’s … dead,” she lets out a sob.
Her announcement is met with a few gasps, and a couple whens and hows.
“He won’t wake up… he’s gone.”
“Are you sure?” Agnes questions. “He sleeps pretty deep. Sometimes it’s taken the use of a cattle prod, but he’s woken up.”
“It’s been confirmed,” Dottie shakes her head, dabbing at her tears. “And what the hell is going on here, anyway?”
Hattie rushes over to console her and fill her in on the events of the last few days.